As used herein, the term ‘dynamic range’ (DR) may relate to a capability of the human psychovisual system (HVS) to perceive a range of intensity (e.g., luminance, luma) in an image, e.g., from darkest darks to brightest brights. In this sense, DR relates to a ‘scene-referred’ intensity. DR may also relate to the ability of a display device to adequately or approximately render an intensity range of a particular breadth. In this sense, DR relates to a ‘display-referred’ intensity. Unless a particular sense is explicitly specified to have particular significance at any point in the description herein, it should be inferred that the term may be used in either sense, e.g. interchangeably.
As used herein, the term high dynamic range (HDR) relates to a DR breadth that spans the some 14-15 orders of magnitude of the human visual system (HVS). For example, well adapted humans with essentially normal vision (e.g., in one or more of a statistical, biometric or ophthalmological sense) have an intensity range that spans about 15 orders of magnitude. Adapted humans may perceive dim light sources of as few as a mere handful of photons. Yet, these same humans may perceive the near painfully brilliant intensity of the noonday sun in desert, sea or snow (or even glance into the sun, however briefly to prevent damage). This span though is available to ‘adapted’ humans, e.g., those whose HVS has a time period in which to reset and adjust.
In contrast, the DR over which a human may simultaneously perceive an extensive breadth in intensity range may be somewhat truncated, in relation to HDR. As used herein, the terms ‘visual dynamic range’ or ‘variable dynamic range’ (VDR) may individually or interchangeably relate to the DR that is simultaneously perceivable by a HVS. As used herein, VDR may relate to a DR that spans 5-6 orders of magnitude. Thus while perhaps somewhat narrower in relation to true scene referred HDR, VDR nonetheless represents a wide DR breadth. As used herein, the term ‘simultaneous dynamic range’ may relate to VDR.
Until fairly recently, displays have had a significantly narrower DR than HDR or VDR. Television (TV) and computer monitor apparatus that use typical cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD) with constant fluorescent white back lighting or plasma screen technology may be constrained in their DR rendering capability to approximately three orders of magnitude. Such conventional displays thus typify a low dynamic range (LDR), also referred to as a standard dynamic range (SDR), in relation to VDR and HDR.
As with the scalable video coding and HDTV technologies, extending image DR typically involves a bifurcate approach. For example, scene referred HDR content that is captured with a modern HDR capable camera may be used to generate either a VDR version or an SDR version of the content, which may be displayed on either a VDR display or a conventional SDR display. In one approach, generating the SDR version from the captured VDR version may involve applying a global tone mapping operator (TMO) to intensity (e.g., luminance, luma) related pixel values in the HDR content. In a second approach, as described in PCT Application PCT/US2011/048861, filed Aug. 23, 2011, “Extending Image Dynamic Range”, by W. Gish et al., generating an SDR image may involve applying an invertible operator (or predictor) on the VDR data. To conserve bandwidth or for other considerations, simultaneous transmission of both the actual captured VDR content and the SDR content may not be a best approach.
Thus, an inverse tone mapping operator (iTMO), inverted in relation to the original TMO, or an inverse operator in relation to the original predictor, may be applied to the SDR content version that was generated, which allows a version of the original VDR content to be predicted. The predicted VDR content version may be compared to generated VDR content. For example, subtracting the predicted VDR version from the original VDR version may generate a residual image. An encoder may send the generated SDR content as a base layer (BL), any residual image as an enhancement layer (EL), and package the iTMO or other predictors or as metadata.
Sending the EL and metadata, with its SDR content, residual and predictors, in a bitstream typically consumes less bandwidth than would be consumed in sending both the HDR and SDR contents directly into the bitstream. Compatible decoders that receive the bitstream sent by the encoder may decode and render the SDR on conventional displays. Compatible decoders however may also use the residual image, the iTMO predictors, or the metadata to compute a predicted version of the HDR content therefrom, for use on more capable displays.
In such layered VDR coding, images may be represented at different spatial resolutions, bit depths, color spaces, and chroma subsampling formats, all of which may force a variety of computer-intensive transformations from a first color format to a second color format.
As used herein, the term “color format” relates to a color representation that comprises two variables: a) a color space variable (for example: RGB, YUV, YCbCr, and the like) and a chroma subsampling variable (for example: 4:4:4, 4:2:0, and the like.) For example, a VDR signal may have an RGB 4:4:4 color format, while an SDR signal may have a YCbCr 4:2:0 color format.
As used herein, the terms “up-sampling” or “up-scaling” relate to the process of transforming one or more color components of an image from one spatial resolution to a second, higher, spatial resolution. For example, a video signal may be up-sampled from a 4:2:0 format to a 4:4:4 format.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.